Emma Krieger-Kittle is descended from a line of basketball players in a basketball-playing family that spans four generations of Iowans. She's always played basketball with skill and verve and with the assumption that it would be her college sport.

But she is playing volleyball at Iowa as a freshman.

"With that gene pool it's blasphemy," West High volleyball coach Kathy Bresnahan joked. "That's like being a Lutheran in Dubuque; it just doesn't happen."

Krieger-Kittle is the Press-Citizen's female high school athlete of the year after an outstanding, if underappreciated, career at West High in both basketball and volleyball. She earned all-state honors in both sports, helping the Women of Troy to the state volleyball tournament and the regional final in basketball as a senior.